Wow! I can only start this post by saying that one word WOW!! I created this page before I knew what my REAL journey was ever going to be about. How does that happen? It happens because God’s design for our life is something HE knows of before we do. See, I am an adoptive parent. I adopted chronically ill children. And I started this support group idea..”Joshua’s Generation”.. thinking I could really impact alot of people with my experience..and my focus was on the chronically ill children and how we could really lift that up into a ministry of some sort. And I threw this blog in there as well…thinking as I created and designed the other stuff..I could also throw some things in there from an adoptive family aspect. I have a unique family life and I want nothing more than to help people overcome all that goes with adoption or chronically ill children.
As an adoptive parent..I have seen first hand what adoption really means to a child. We have been through massive adjustment with each child..the emotional aspect is monumental. When you have biological children..young biological children, adoption is something they go through as well. Adoption is not something that affects one or two people. It affects a family if other members of a family are involved.
I can tell you first hand adoption is an amazing journey. It will take you to the peaks of emotions you didn’t even think was possible to feel. It will challenge you beyond measure, it will bring you to places inside yourself you didn’t even know existed. See, it’s a very interesting journey too because the growth that comes with adoption is something I never would have ever imagined possible. You are taken to extreme places in adoption. As an adoptive parent you even become angry at the biological family for some of the things that take place before a child is removed from a home if you adopted from foster care. But adoption can also be a beautiful experience no matter what the circumstance or reason for adoption.
One of the most powerful things about adoption you learn is “blood ties”. See we all have this idea of love and family that it doesn’t take blood relations to create or make up a family. This much is absolutely true. But what is not entirely true is that real blood lines won’t matter .We all have this fantasy idea..even I did so I can write this from experience, we naively believe that you can forget where you came from. No actually you cannot. I am here to tell you that blood absolutely does matter and nothing you say or do will ever take away, dull, eliminate, erase NOR is it even possible to delete what goes with blood ties. The only way this is ever possible is if someone just never knows they are adopted. I am sure there are stories out there where adopted children don’t want to know their birth families..but even still it’s a choice. I have personally come to the belief that God designed blood with magnetic pieces inside and when you know you have blood out there…like a hound you want to sniff it out. And that curiousity is never appeased until you know your answers.
I have watched my adopted children for the last couple of years and our situation is a little unique and my children knew their birth family…but even still,with all that they endured, the neglect and hardships, they want that birth family. Blood is a powerful thing to children. To parents, to siblings. There is not a day that goes by that my daughter does not think of her blood brother…her blood family. I live this with her. I talk about it with her. Her birth family is very real to me. I journeyed into their birth father dying and having to be the person that shared that with my adopted child. Painful, painful things to watch a child go through. Blood and family is God’s design for his people. And I’ve watched it first hand..being a constant fight, a constant battle to accept for my children. They every day have to fight to live with their desires of wanting thier blood related family. I have come to be so intimate with the emotions of what really takes place for a child of adoption…but I had no idea God would reveal different angles of adoption or that it would hit so close home to my own heart.
A couple weeks ago, the child that I knew my mother gave up for adoption found us. And with all I’ve experienced as an adoptive parent…now I’m a sibling of an adopted child. How does that come back around. Well..I’m going with it. I’m now my children. I am a sibling of adoption. So that statement of it doesn’t affect just one person. TRUE. And I am here to tell you that the magnetic pull of blood is a monumental emotion. It’s like the one magnetic pull I watched my children go through…I was now feeling.I am feeling. MONUMENTAL. And my thought process. I cannot get out of my head if he liked super heroes. What is up with that? And I mourn…oh how I mourn this life I could have had with him. To know that years cannot be made up. To know someone’s blood us pulsating through thier veins that tested match your DNA…your magnetic DNA. It’s all consuming. A curiosity beyond peaks you never thought existed and valleys so low…it’s heartbreaking. It is incredibly bittersweet so feel what could have been…but never was,OH but now is. And I am sitting here in awe of my past experience, my gifts God has given me, my love for writing…my desire for God to use me in ways HE see’s fit…and I realize as I sit here..he was only just beginning to prepare my heart. Now a little of the picture makes more sense. It doesn’t make the emotions of it any easier. But this all wasn’t anything of me…this was all GOD. Wow…it’s powerful to know that. Which makes the pul of it even greater. To know God designed this plan…WOW!
So as a person passionate about adoption..I had no idea it was going to land home so close in my heart. I had no idea I would see this brother I had..with all knowing wisdom of what he must feel as an adopted child. See I think what makes this so overpowering for me as a person is…I know adoption. I know the intimate details, depths and emotions that go with it..from a child’s perspective. Now my brother is those children. He was. He has been. He has questioned..he has been curious beyond measures…so, I know those emotions. I know that power. I know that blood pull. And God now just gave that to the two of us. Talk about powerful. When God gives you abilities to feel so compassionately about another person with insight and undertanding to their situation…you get so caught up emotionally.Now, I’m looking at my children saying AHH…I got it. Wow this is really intense. Wow this is an amazing pull. And I crumble over the burdens they must carry…the weight of that pull. What my children must feel for their parents. And their siblings. God has been showing me for the last couple of days…this beautiful journey.No matter what way you look at it. Adoption is just a beautiful amazing journey.
The emotions and depths of adoption are this magnificent journey. It really brings home how God has adopted us all. See ultimately blood doesn’t have to exist to make us family…but really when you think of it…God designed us..in HIS image from the earth and by Jesus’ blood we are created by BLOOD. I know I personally get consumed when I see Jesus up on a cross and I see HIS blood. Bood absolutely matters but is not necessary. I find it interesting we are pulled by the great emotion of love and love is a powerful thing. Love is like the glue that brings us into one family. You don’t need blood for love. And you don’t need blood to be a parent of a sibling. But when true DNA and blood is present…when adoption is what seperates that DNA..you are pulled like a magnetic force that was God’s design to be there. And this is my current journey. And I’m embracing it.
See my new found brother and I have already talked about God. And I hear God speaking to my heart about this gift he is giving me. And this new found brother spoke something to me and said…God isn’t finished with you..and in my struggle and pain that goes with adoption..the normal fluctuationg emotions that take you on the biggest roller coaster of your life…I realized..You know, your right. I didn’t become an adoptive parent for nothing. God was preparing me. God designed my heart for this journey and I cannot wait to see where HE takes me…because I know he has just fully blessed me. He’s blessing my mother and healing her of pain and scars.At least he will. And he is healing my brother and bringing us all together. God has blessed me one more time. For that I am eternally grateful for not just the blood of Jesus…but the blood of my brother as well.
A Place called Home 